George Carlin on Conspiracies

> When interests converge, formal conspiracies aren’t necessary. These people went to the same universities, joined the same fraternities, and sat on the same boards and country clubs. They share the same interests. They don’t need to call a meeting—they already know what’s good for them. - ▶ this video

> I'm sure you didn't mean to imply it but the way your post is worded could be misunderstood as if you were saying that some powerful entity is trying to mute rms through defamation I said what I said, though, you should understand there doesn't need to be some 'entity' making dictates. Just powerful people whose interests align; who all went to the same schools, are in the same clubs, and have the same fucked up views [0]. 'Muting' isn't the word I'd use; I'd go with 'marginalize'. Close enough though. RMS' vision of free software is an existential threat to big tech, and to the ecosystem of mass surveillance they enable. Much as Assange's autism was weaponized to paint him as 'arrogant' in corporate media, RMS' quirks have been magnified to mark him as 'crazy' despite the fact that it's possible no one alive, ever, has had such a clear view on software freedom. > However, the website you cite points out that the beginning of the whole sex offender thing was a single MIT alumna who wrote a blog post. Whereever the initial spark came from, it was carefully nurtured into a blaze, most obviously by Vice. Vice deliberately twisted RMS' words, craftily removing clear and vital context to make RMS look as creepy as possible. Then, corporate media took that steaming turd of a Vice article and repeated it ad nauseum, without talking to Stallman, without ever adding context, and without any apology or retraction after the truth slowly filtered through. Here's [1] a great and short a

There's a joke from a comedian I forget if it is L̶o̶u̶i̶s̶ ̶C̶K̶ George Carlin o̶r̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶. But basically is along the lines that you don't have explicitly collude when you all come from the same backgrounds. The interests are aligned already. It's pointing out that representatives need to actually be from representative populations of people. But he did it in a funny way, this comment really isn't. Edit: thanks lo_zamoyski. Here's a video: ▶ this video

> What's being proposed is a grand conspiracy theory. That across most companies across all the states in the country they've all decided to be evil and greedy together... To quote the late George Carlin "you don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge." ▶ this video

A simpler explanation of 'greedflation' is simply that the lack of actual competition by market leaders in most consumer goods markets has lead to massive profits and higher prices, without increased wages. "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good" - a fantastic quote from a fun movie, but it can in fact be true too. If we use greed as a means to drive competitors in a market, competing against each other, resulting in them creatively undercutting one another, driving down prices so that they can sell the most, then the consumer wins out. But that isn't happening anymore. The largest corporations in each market have gained dominance through mergers, acquisitions, etc. They can reduce their own costs because of their massive scale, more than anyone newcomer can. The result is less and less competition for even basic things like groceries. Here in Canada, there are dozens of different grocery store brands- and they're all owned by 3 companies, giving the illusion of choice. If there were lots of competing retailers for common goods, they'd also be competing for labour, offering better salaries and benefits to their employees, which would help alleviate the cost of living crisis we're in now. But that isn't happening either, again because there's fewer and fewer companies to work for. All the while, the leaders of the world's large corporations are taking hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries, and giving their shareholders billions in profits. "You don't need a formal co